


Programmed for Sympathy (Not Empathy)

by polandspringz



Category: gen:LOCK (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Developing Friendships, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 22:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17858036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polandspringz/pseuds/polandspringz
Summary: "Did you hear that Caliban? You've made a friend. You'll want to treasure that, I do say."Chase arrives at the ESU and Caliban is given a new set of instructions to follow to help with his recovery and rehabilitation. Chase doesn't mind the fact that his new best friend is a robot, but Caliban is unable to understand why this human is so intent on talking with him outside of giving orders. Until-"I need to page Dr. Weller."I typed it again, at a loss once more."I need to page Dr. Weller. He will know what to do."





	Programmed for Sympathy (Not Empathy)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on a quest to write as much gen:LOCK fanfiction as I can! This one I've had in my drafts for a few weeks now, but was busy getting people to beta it. This was written for my friend Jenny, who is so desperate for Caliban content in this show that I will force it into existence with my own two hands. Sorry for any medical inaccuracies. Enjoy!

Dr. Weller programmed me several days ago with a new routine. He had left me unattended for a month, hardly any orders outside of my usual circulation around the facility, him completely occupied with some new task and I, to my jobs of tearing apart old prototypes of myself to salvage for future projects. When he interrupted my cycle one evening to program a new set of tasks into me, it was hard to saw what I thought about it. Before going to charge three nights prior, my voice command function had picked up on his conversation with someone.

 

_“How is he, Doctor?”_

 

“He’s been stabilized. However, it’s going to be much harder for us to help him get antiquated with the system.”

 

“Has he agreed to do it?”

 

“He hasn’t woken up yet, Colonel,” Dr. Weller’s voice dropped as he seemed to hiss it out. Some part of me recognized the defeated tone he was giving off, “When he does, I’m going to need some of the best therapists in the Polity down here to help me tell a man why he’s only a torso, head, and an arm before I can even breach the topic of militarizing my creation for him.”

 

I was motionless as Dr. Weller pulled out one of the chips that were slotted into the back of my head. I felt somewhat sad as my cleaning duties were yanked out of me, but my brain instantly loaded in the new code that he patted into its place. As he typed to make sure everything was okay, he addressed me.

 

“Well, Caliban, lucky you! Your first real task has appeared! As much as I would love to stay up all the time and do nothing but create, it would be bad for all of us if I kicked the bucket early through sleep deprivation or a misstep in welding. Now, we have a new friend for you take care of, his name is Chase, and I will be assigning you to monitor his vitals as well as help accommodate him to life here.” He smiled, knowing I had already loaded and processed all of the information seconds after it had been plugged into me, but, he continued to verbally explain.

 

“You’ve been a very good creation of mine! I’m sure Chase will enjoy your company very well.”

 

A distant part of my brain picked up on his repetitive adjective use and connected it to the way his smile fell when he turned back to his computer. The more aware part of my brain deleted it as my internal clock signalled for me to make my rounds to “Chase”.

 

* * *

 

 

Chase was vocal upon his first awakening. The first week of my job was performed in silence, save for the whizzing and whirling of my own motors, fans, and processes. I circled around the tank encasing the human, my “eyes” loading up the information from the displays hovering around the outside and checked his status. Heart rate was slow, but not abnormal for sleeping humans, and the data Dr. Weller had given me said that it might drop to even lower levels due to his body trying to adjust and regulate its new structure. I knew not to worry unless it hit dangerously low levels, and the same with his lungs and brain waves. On the seventh day of my rounds, I walked up to Chase’s tank to do another routine scan when his eyes opened, and he tried to scream.

 

My protocol was the signal Dr. Weller, but my first command in the list was to sedate Chase. No, calm him, was the wording Dr. Weller put in the code. A new list of operations loaded into me, and I moved closer to the tank, typing a few words into the keypad there.

 

**Try using your hologram.**

Chase went quiet as the words appeared in his vision, then shut his eyes and loaded into the room next to me. Once he was “awake” again, he started screaming once more, running for the exit. I disabled his hologram action, and typed into the tank again the next command.

 

**You are safe.**

It was a phrase I did not understand, but was told to say. Then:

 

**You are alive and with the Polity. You are not in danger.**

He stopped screaming, his breathing stabilizing as he tried to slow it. Even in this time of panic, his brain was able to access his emergency training that taught him how to suppress his anxiety.

 

**Try using your hologram again. Don’t turn around.**

Chase, upon loading himself into the room a second time, turned around, and spotted his amputated body. His hologram dissipated and I watched as his heart rate spiked low, passing out in the tank.

 

I paged Dr. Weller.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, Caliban.”

  
Chase called to me from across the lab. My protocol ordered me to interrupt my rounds and respond to him. I walked over. I waited.

 

“Yo, man, could you like type to me or something? It’s weird talking to myself enough already all the time.”

 

Dr. Weller had given me a list of greetings to use with Chase. I tried them all until I got a reaction.

 

**Hello. Hola. Bonjour. Yo.**

Chase let out a sound at that, one that rang in the echo of his tank for a moment that I briefly registered as a laugh before my brain dumped that information.

 

“So you can learn my lingo. Cool man, cool. Hey, uh, so Dr. Weller said you could do stuff for me, like program things?”

 

**Yes.**

“Well, I was wondering if you could play music in here? It gets real quiet and well… I’m sure you guys don’t want me going mad if you’re gonna need me on the battlefield, right?”

 

**You will not be entering the battlefield for the next six months,** I stated, **You must undergo training to learn how to use your Holon. You may not leave the tank.**

Chase deflated at that. His shoulder twitched to roll forward, and Chase’s body seemed to jerk when it realized it could not complete the action. I had seen Dr. Weller do something similar in an attempt to scratch the back of his head.

 

“Yo man, I know that. You don’t have to say it. It’s just…” His one and only arm shifted forward, and he seemed to try and press his forehead to the front of the tank, but the liquid surrounding him pushed up towards the surface and kept him upright. He was trying to slouch. I deleted that thought, “I know you’re busy and you can’t stop and talk to me all the time. The Doc too.. I just want to hear someone’s voice.”

 

I scanned the list of requests I was able to comply to.

 

**I cannot talk to you. I am not programed to do that.**

Chase snorted, then smiled, “Then what are you doing right now?”

 

I stopped and retraced my log and the request list.

 

**I was not programmed with a voice. I cannot “talk” to you.**

The Doctor had suggested repeating something with quotations might help Chase understand.

 

“Okay, okay. I get it. If the Doc stops by, I’ll ask him if he can set up a music player that you can play or something. Well, thanks Caliban. You’re dismissed or… whatever.”

 

He jerked his arm up in an attempt to wave. His muscle movement was increasing, I made a note to the Doctor. As I began to resume my tasks, I heard Chase’s voice filter around the lab.

 

_“So let the good times roll….”_

Something popped to the top of my request list, rather, something had been unburied from Chase’s data that Dr. Weller had loaded me with. Audio recorded on his black box that had been taken from the remains of his razor when he had been extracted from it after the Fall of New York. A transcript of lyrics, and beside it, my request list gave me instructions on how to decipher it.

 

_No information about the Fall can be provided to patient until later psychological analysis._

_No information about the Polity or Union can be provided to the patient until later psychological_

_analysis._

_No information about the location or state of family or loved ones can be provided to the patient until later psychological analysis._

I examined the lyrics, connecting them to multiple audio and video files on the Internet before I traced them to articles that preceded the Fall. Nothing after the fall. No connection between the Fall, the Polity, or the Union had been found. Music file will begin playing automatically… Connecting to speakers....

 

“What? Woah, thanks Caliban.” Chase said, his voice rising an octave in surprise and happiness as a song began to play overhead throughout the lab. While I understood what he meant by “thanks”, as Dr. Weller would often say such to me after I completed an unexpected task, I never found a need for myself to say anything in return. I had done my job. I had completed my orders. Nothing more needed to be done. However, I could sense that Chase was waiting for me to respond, so I searched for an acceptable response, and walked to the keypad again.

 

**You’re welcome.**

 

* * *

 

“Caliban, hand me the next piece of optical fabric.”

 

Dr. Weller’s voice was steady but tense, his eyes never leaving Chase’s suspended body as he worked to stitch and weld the gen:LOCK suit overtop him and tubes supporting him. Within a second, I recognized the correct fabric piece and he took it from me, and I went back to checking over the circuits that were woven into the fibers, making sure that when connected there would be no foreseeable errors. Chase’s suit had been made almost a year ago, back when he had first been recognized as a candidate for the program, but now it had to be remade and the design modified to account for his new form. He would not need the same enhancements other pilots would need, while the training program was focused on getting gen:LOCK pilots to harness their bodies so they could be on par with their increased mobility and speed as computers in the mechs, Chase needed the suit to enhance his neurons to make up for where there was no center for receiving the messages. While he had not lost the ones in his brain that controlled his legs and his other arm, they had been dulled by lack of use and the fact that they had not been sending anything to the missing parts.

 

“Caliban, the next piece.”

 

Dr. Weller only had a short window of time to keep Chase’s tank open to do this operation before there was a risk of Chase’s system collapsing from exposure to the air. Normally, the ESU would be bustling with some of the Doctor’s assistants and other scientists, but for sterilization and containment, the main lab was locked and empty, save for the two of them.

 

Chase coughed once and it quickly turned into a wheeze. The displays began to wail as the vitals began to fluctuate violently. Dr. Weller pulled the last stitch on the strap connecting the breast piece to the shoulder and jumped backwards, hissing in alarm.

 

“Get the tank closed! Get the tank closed!” He yelled to himself, rushing past me to the control panel. Hunched over, his fingers slammed against the screen and he barely glanced over his shoulder to order me, “Caliban! Reattach the dialysis machine! It became loose!”

 

Chase continued to hack and gasp as Dr. Weller raised his oxygen intake. Moving away from the table, I took Chase’s hand and flipped it over to examine his wrist, and saw that Dr. Weller must have knocked into it when putting the material around his arm. I had been loaded with a list of instructions on how to go about changing the IVs and how to work the other life support machines in case of an emergency, and so I fixed the problem within a few seconds. When I had been first given the information, months ago, I had seen no times to apply it, as the only way I would be able to do such task would be when the tank was open but Dr. Weller had that tank on lockdown for the entire ESU. Only he had the code capable of opening and closing it for check ups or operations like this one.

 

The red lights illuminating the lab dimmed and cooled back to their cyan hue a few minutes later, and Chase’s breathing was beginning to even out. The tank was closed now, Dr. Weller having corrected the oxygen levels but he was still leaning over the console, staring down at the information about Chase’s heart rate and oxygen intake.

 

“...Doc?” Chase’s voice was raspy now, and I stepped back as Dr. Weller rushed towards him, placing his hands against the tank as he scanned up and down the body of his patient.

 

“Sorry about that Chase. I really should have put the suit on you when we first operated on you, but I thought it was best if we asked you before forcing you into the program.”

 

“No, I”m…” he swallowed and shut his eyes. His vitals were steadying, but his emotions were still running high, according to the chemical feedback I was being given about his brain, “I’m glad you did, Doc. I needed time. Thank you and… uh, sorry you had to see that, Caliban.”

 

I merely paused in my reading, hearing my name but waiting as I was given no task to complete. Dr. Weller was watching me, and I thought perhaps I had missed a command, but my log showed none recorded. It seemed I was not being given one. I went about cleaning out my log of unnecessary data recorded, but I could not delete the look Dr. Weller was giving me. I could not decipher his body language as he watched me after Chase spoke. It confused me, so I stored it away to decode while I charged.

 

* * *

 

 

“Yo, Caliban, check this out!”

 

I stopped and watched as Chase controlled the robotic arm of the Holon. Dr. Weller had given him some objects to test his coordination skills with and Chase was currently favoring the few pieces of sport equipment that were scattered around the lab. He was juggling a few soccer balls.

 

“Yes, Chase!” Dr. Weller’s hologram smiled as he watched the Holon play, “You are improving at a tremendous rate! I truthfully did not expect you to show such early improvement! This is marvellous!”

 

I continued to flip through Dr. Weller’s notes. It had been almost eight months since Chase had arrived at the ESU, the first six focused on ensuring his stability in his new body and rewiring gen:LOCK to accomodate for his new state, and it was only today that the Doctor had decided to let Chase in the Holon for the first time. There were some reports from the Colonel at the Anvil that had arrived that seemed to request that Chase’s training be accelerated, as the threat of the Union was getting worse.

 

“Hey, Caliban, you wanna play a game?” Chase stopped juggling, dropping all but one of the balls which he set down on the ground in front of him gently, “I won’t crush him, will I, Doc?”

 

“If were to step on him, it might be an issue, but if he’s just blocking for you, then I’m sure it will be fine. Caliban, go stand over there and catch what Chase kicks!”

 

I marched over to the makeshift “net”, which was a space between two columns in the outdoor training facility of the ESU. Many of the robots and drones here had to work their way through a series of obstacle courses when they were still in their testing phase. I never had to run through them though, and the only possible reason I could compute for as to why was that I was a personal project made by the Doctor himself and that my purpose was different than the ones the other scientists and engineers built.

“Alright, here we go,” Chase’s voice came through the robot’s speakers as he took a step back. He was likely testing his new sensors and abilities, such as the tracker that would help him in selecting where to aim. However, Dr. Weller had designed that tracker based on my own so it was unlikely that the ball would-

 

“Caliban!”

 

I was knocked backwards a good ten feet on my back as the ball collided with my head, and I felt some things get jostled around by the force of it. My optical sensors were staring up at the blue sky with the white sun positioned high meaning it was around 12 PM on the west coast, and I knew I was located there but why was that information at the front of my task list? I kept remembering random pieces of data, from Chase’s music playlist, definitions, the ESU employee roster, and recorded calls from the Colonel. Suddenly, the blue sky was altered and I could see Dr. Weller above me alongside the face of Chase’s Holon. Dr. Weller knelt down and began to turn me over, examining my memory cards.

 

“He seems a little disoriented because some things came loose. I needed to do maintenance on him anyway, but we will have to get you a better sparring partner!” Dr. Weller laughed, “I hope we can find one, but it’s more likely we build you one.”

 

As the cards were pressed back into my reader properly and my senses righted themselves, I instantly tried to absorb all the data I had missed. I sat up, picking up on their voices, their motions, recording it all. Chase’s robotic arm reached towards me, picking me up.

 

“I don’t know Doc, I think you might want to upgrade Caliban him as well! We’re friends after all, and I’d like to see if he can play a real game with me in the future.”

 

Later on, when Dr. Weller would take me aside to check if anything had gotten damaged, I would do my daily cleaning and shift through my memories. I deleted some conversations, but I decided to keep the words Chase had said as he had placed me on his Holon’s shoulder.

 

“Did you hear that Caliban?” Dr. Weller said, reading through my log to see what my data had failed to pick up after I had been hit, “You’ve made a friend. You’ll want to treasure that, I do say.”

 

I reasoned that it was the Doctor’s words that prevented me from deleting it. Nothing more.

 

* * *

 

 

There was a new candidate for gen:LOCK found. Dr. Weller had her transferred from the Mesa Detainment Center to come live at the ESU’s base, but she was less compliant than Chase was about the whole program, at first. Within a few weeks, I saw her after hours in the ESU talking to Chase or around the Doctor as he made his rounds to check in on the other labs. She did not approach me often, but she had been in the room a few times when I had my maintenance or had been nearby waiting for her chance to speak with Chase while I did a routine check on his vitals. With her appearance, Dr. Weller removed the combatic information he had loaded me with, as Chase and her would train with one another now and soon be going into small combat situations to defend the Union forces that was trying to infiltrate through coastal attacks on the west and south coast.

 

During the time Chase and her uploaded, I was tasked with watching their vitals as they slept in their respective tank and pod. Dr. Weller often needed to phase his hologram into observe from the jet flying over where they were fighting or be on the phone with the Colonel during those times. Whenever Chase woke up from a battle, the woman, Yasamin Madrani, would walk past me to go lecture him about something that had occurred, or, in rare times, thank him for saving her. Her voice was angry and harsh, but most of the time, I could detect her shaking somewhat, and Chase would don his hologram form to walk with her out of the ESU if the Doctor was not available. Other times, when she was done talking to him, Chase would call me over to “talk”.

 

“Caliban, how did things look when we were out there?”

 

The woman lingered this time. I walked around her to the keyboard.

 

**You almost burned through all your uptime at the end. You need to be careful.**

“See?” She gestured, reading what I typed as well, “Even the drone agrees with me.”

 

“He’s not a drone, Yaz. He’s an AI. He’s been taking care of me since the beginning.”

 

**Correction. You both almost burned through all your uptime at the end. You both need to be careful.**

Chase let out a laugh and I saw the woman’s face transform into frown, but I could detect amusement from her.

 

“He’s a got sense of humour too. The Doc made him before he built the Holons, apparently. He’s helped keep me sane in here before you showed up.”

 

“Then he must have more jobs than just monitoring you,” She asked, “What else do you do?”

 

I was silent.

 

“You gotta say his name first, Yaz. He doesn’t realize its a command if you don’t say his name.”

 

“Seems more like a drone to me.”

 

“Caliban,” Chase tried, “Can you tell us your task list?”

My fingers prepared to type, but I felt the command I had been given get blocked by my restrictions on what information I could provide Chase with. My circuits worked in silence for a minute to match each task with its restriction before I pulled up the list of jobs I could tell Chase.

 

**Initiate gen:LOCK with candidates.**

**Monitor vitals of gen:LOCK candidates during gen:LOCK.**

**Monitor Chase’s vitals outside of gen:LOCK.**

**Report to Dr. Weller changes in vitals.**

**Keep Chase company.**

“The last one, see? He’s my friend, Yaz.”

 

“Only because he’s been programmed that way-”

 

**Keep Chase alive-**

 

Before I could finish my thought, a sudden new restriction being found on the remainder of that last command. I tried again, but I knew that the woman had seen what I had typed out. I sought to correct it.

 

**Be Chase’s friend.**

“Well, whatever, he’s been there for me for longer than you have.”

 

* * *

 

_“He’s my friend Yaz, I swear.”_

_“Caliban won’t let anything bad happen to me.”_

_“Yo, Caliban, can you make a whole playlist for me by Louis Jordan?”_

_“I think Caliban and I have the same favorite song, Doc. He knows to play “Let the Good Times Roll” whenever I get back from battle. He gets me.”_

_“Come on, Yaz. I bet Caliban can beat you at basketball.”_

_“Caliban-”_

_“Caliban!”_

 

_“Yo, Caliban!”_

“We cool right, Caliban?” Chase had asked me one night, after Yasamin had dragged the Doctor to bed. There was a data breach three weeks ago, an infiltration, and today a kidnapping of several scientists in the facility. Yasamin and Chase had managed to protect the Doctor inside the ESU, but after the attack was stopped, he had been on the phone with the Colonel and working hard at increasing security. The ESU was almost empty now, having lost more and more employees with each incident. It was almost just the three of them, Yasamin, Dr. Weller, and Chase, as the only human workers on the base.

 

**Please clarify.** I asked.

 

“Well, sometimes I don’t know how you feel. It’s a little weird because you’re a machine, but I know you’ve got some AI in there, and that the Doc must have made you extra special because you don’t act like any of the other AI I have interacted with before. So, how are you feeling?”

 

**I do not experience feelings.** I typed, to which Chase seemed to frown at.

 

“See, you say that, but I think you’re lying.”

 

**I cannot lie. I have restricted settings to ensure I never have to lie.**

“Well, this is the first I have heard of these restricted settings,’ Chase hummed, “What do they restrict you from doing?”

 

**I cannot answer that. That is confidential information.**

“Hmm, that’s about what I expected, but I can figure out just what you might be hiding from me. But, anyway, don’t you ever feel tired? Like you need to recharge?”

 

**I do need to take resting breaks in order to sort through my data.**

“Oh, so the Doc made you dream too, cool! What do you usually do when sorting?”

 

**I clean and delete or save information I have recorded throughout the day.**

“What’s something you deleted?”

 

**I have no memory of it.**

 

“Okay, fair. What’s something you saved then?”

 

**Dr. Weller,** was all I could find myself able to write, as I could not find a suitable answer that conveyed the way my creator had looked at me when Chase had apologized for having me witness his death.

 

“If you forgot who he was, that would be bad. You said you record things though? Is there any audio you have saved then? Music?”

 

**I have saved the times you called me your friend.** I confessed, and then stopped, processing the words I had typed out. I could sense that it was out of place… wrong… somehow. I could not delete these words though, as they were not inside my memory, but being displayed and read aloud by the computer’s voice for Chase to read. I waited for a response, patiently, calmly. I do not know why I waited, why I did not walk off or decide to load up my tasks to resume. Nevertheless, I waited. At last, I heard Chase take a deep breath.

 

“See buddy, we’re cool.”  He smiled at me, and I felt myself taking that image and saving it to my memory too, “But, are they just text or are they audio files? In that case, can you play any of them, cause I would love to hear-”

 

“Caliban!” Yasamin’s voice called from the doors to the main lab, “Dr. Weller wants you to help with something in the hanger.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Caliban-” Chase’s voice was quiet as it summoned me from across the lab. It sounded strained and raspy, but I thought nothing of it, walking over at my normal speed to see what he wanted. I found myself preparing the audio file he liked so much on standby, in case he wanted to listen to it. I rounded the corner of one of the many stations in the ESU and the tank came into view.

 

The displays in front of the tank were bright red. I could see Chase’s eyes wide and stricken with an emotion I had only seen him have when he was pulled forcibly out of a dangerous battle and Yasamin wasn’t. He looked _scared._

 

My servers sent my legs sprinting towards the tank, and I loaded all the data I could see and tried to process it as quickly as possible.

 

Heart rate…. Increasing

 

Oxygen levels… Dropping

 

**Check placement of oxygen mask. Error- tank is locked.**

 

Blood Pressure…Dropping

 

Toxins level...Increasing

 

**Check the dialysis machine. Error- tank is locked.**

“Caliban-” I lifted my head, seeing Chase’s body shaking in the fluid. This was new. He had never done this before. His eyes seemed scared, and I could see the way his skin was sunken in. How long had he been like this?

 

**I need to page Dr. Weller.** I found myself typing into his display, but rather than doing the action, I found myself waiting, hovering over the keypad. I was waiting for Chase’s response.

 

He wheezed, the cough racketing his entire torso, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s happening- I can’t really see, I-”

 

Vision is failing. **I need to page Dr. Weller.** I typed it again, at a loss once more. I watched him struggle for air, the readings on the display continuing to drop. **I need to page Dr. Weller. He will know what to do.**

Once again, the words yielded no results. I kept watching as Chase’s heart rate began to increase, rapidly thumping as if he was having an attack. _I need to page Dr. Weller,_ I kept thinking, but no menu or options or task list was filling in how I should do this. What was wrong? My fingers kept typing, waiting for Chase to reply. His coughs were getting worse, and his shuddering turned into full on spasms. His arm slammed against the side of the tank.

 

His face was in so much pain, and his eyes were shutting.

 

**Do you want me to page Dr. Weller?**

My hands found the speech option on the keypad, and a voice filtered through the lab. Chase’s brown eyes opened marginally, registering that I was still here. He opened his mouth, but coughing continued.

 

An idea came to me. I typed once more.

 

**Caliban, page Dr. Weller.**

The voice was read back to me and I felt my command center light up. All the information being fed to me sent me reeling back, and my brain sent the message across all of the ESU. My task list practically exploded, and but I found myself faced with another series of errors. The tank was closed. I could increase oxygen levels, but if the dialysis machine was loose or something else was messing up Chase that I needed to fix _inside,_ I would not be able to until he got there. I had no idea where the Doctor was, how long he was going to take. Ever since the ESU had downgraded, he had been in the main lab almost constantly, so where could he be now?

 

The displays were wailing at me, and I could tell I was running out of time. As my brain pieced together all of the data and began to draw conclusions about which organs were failing, I was struck by one startling realization that made me freeze.

It wasn’t that Chase was dying.

 

It was that Dr. Weller had placed a restriction on me to do not alert him that Chase was specifically dying.

 

I was not to alert Dr. Weller if Chase was dying and did not ask me to call for him.

 

I was not to alert Dr. Weller if Chase _wanted_ to die.

 

Chase had not given me any specific instructions. Did he want to die? I had not been given this information. But he had not told me specifically to _not_ contact Dr. Weller. In fact, he had hardly said anything! He had called me over and then started to shut down. This must be a mistake in my programming. Chase wouldn’t want to die. The Doctor wouldn’t want Chase to die. Chase was the first pilot of the gen:LOCK program, he had worked tirelessly to keep him alive during their recovery of him, he had panicked when Chase showed signs of coming close to death when he was putting the suit on him and the dialysis machine came loose. He wouldn’t want Chase to die. He wouldn’t allow Chase to let himself die.

 

“Caliban-” Chase’s voice was hoarse, and it was almost inaudible. His heart monitor was screaming now, beeping erratically. My brain was racing, but I found myself calming long enough to listen to him, “ _Please…_ I didn’t want to… I don’t want to… I’m… _I’m sorry-”_

 

I wouldn’t allow Chase to die.

 

The heart monitor began to shriek one long final note as my brain found a solution.

 

_Audio file now playing…_

_“Hey, everybody, let’s have some fun-”_

_Fast forwarding._

_“Let the good times roll, let the good times roll, **I-”**_

_Fast forwarding._

_“-talking trash, if you **wanna-”**_

****

_Rewinding._

_“ **-Live** once…”_

I found the sections of the song and replayed them again, this time more exact so the words flowed into one another. Then, I grabbed one file from my memory and blasted it through the speakers in the lab:

 

_“ **Caliban** and I are friends- He won’t let anything bad happen to me-”_

_“I...wanna….live…”_ The voice of the singer came through disjointed and crackled. But, all that mattered was that I heard what it said, and then, **“Caliban.”**

A message was sent and an alarm was blaring across the facility. Dr. Weller would know now to come rushing. But, my mind was more occupied by the new information those words had unlocked in my task list.

 

_A code. The code for the tank._

By the time Dr. Weller and Yasamin burst in through the doors of the main lab, I had administered shocks to Chase twice and my other hand was working at draining the area where the dialysis machine had gotten loose in the vein and leaked into the surrounding tissue. I had hooked up the commands on the displays into my own brain so that I could alter them automatically as if they were data logs on my task list. As the heart monitor stopped shrieking, Dr. Weller and Yasamin yanked me back and stepped over the pieces of broken glass on the floor from where I had smashed the tank in my overload of commands.

 

* * *

 

Chase was alive.

 

Chase was okay.

 

I knew these things, but had not moved from my rest at my charging station on the other side of the ESU for the past few days. Dr. Weller was outfitting Chase in a new tank, and it seemed either my “clever” trick to divert Chase’s death had finally unlocked my ability to be rebellious and ignore my responsibilities or while I slept the Doctor had Yasamin remove all my task cards, as I could not find any jobs in my list that needed attending to.

 

After about a week of what the Doctor would call “sulking” in passing me by, a hologram materialized in front of me.

 

“Hey, man. You know I’ve been good for like, four days now? You don’t have to hide in this corner, you can come visit me, y’know.”

 

I didn’t wake up. I sorted through empty files.

 

“I know you’re fully charged, and I know you’ve got enough sentience that if you really wanted to, you don’t have to wait for me to say your name. You and I are both smart.”

 

A sigh.

 

“I’ve missed having you around. Sure, it sucks cause I can’t get any of the other computers or the robots to play my music for me, but I’ve missed talking with you. Come on, buddy.”

 

I didn’t stir.

 

“Caliban, come on. Come visit my tank.”

 

The hologram disintegrated just as I started to wake, and Chase must have known that my curiosity had been heightened when my sensors went into overdrive, because I found myself weaving through the maze of the lab- my tasks being removed also removed the map too, so I had to rely on the memories I had saved when I was with Chase to navigate based on similar objects or consoles. Eventually, I saw the blue glow of it, and the dark, shadowy silhouette hidden in its light.

 

“Hey, Caliban. How you feeling?”

 

I must have approached the console with some sort of speed, because Chase would later remark I had a “ferocity” to my movements that only someone angry could have. I didn’t know what I was typing, I didn’t understand any of these “feelings” he talked about during our exchange, but I knew that something was wrong with me, and it was because of what happened to him, and while Chase kept saying it was okay it just felt _wrong, wrong, wrong-_

“Look, I know you’re upset-” He said, using the word that I knew didn’t apply to me, “But I just wanted to say that… I’m sorry. I mean, it was nice of the Doc to put in something like that in case I really did have second thoughts, but, I made a promise to you. I told you I wouldn’t let you witness anything like that again, and I let you down. We’re friends, and you’ve had to watch me almost die _twice-”_

 

**“You did die.”**

Chase stopped and listened, and then, a small smile crept across his face.

 

“Okay, yeah, I did die that second time, and that was pretty bad. I really wish you didn’t have to see that but- wow, is that how you did that? Dr. Weller told me you managed to override his restrictions somehow. What songs are you stealing from? Is it coming through your speakers or the ones overhead? Where did you get your own name to command yourself from?”

 

I decided to be silent for once. No typing, no speaking with the fake voice I spliced together either. I listened to Chase rattle on with questions, and I found myself continuously saving more and more of the images of him smiling, laughing, and even frowning when I was too quiet to my memory, deleting none of it. Dr. Weller would find it all later, he would find me later still in front of Chase’s tank, several days later when I had run out of my charge and with no task list I had desire to go recharge myself. I shut down and collapsed to the floor, and Yasamin had to drag me back over to the maintenance desk as the Doctor plugged me in and began to scan through my data.

 

When I woke up again, I saw him smiling as he read through the files and photos I have stored away, Chase’s hologram behind his chair as they both scrolled through my memory.

 

“See, Yaz, even without a program, he’s my friend.”


End file.
